Images are characterized by a complex system of attributes. One of the most elusive properties of an image is its emotiveness – the ability to trigger an emotional reaction in the viewer. Prior research has demonstrated that users react to image emotiveness, yet to date there is little theoretical understanding and scarce empirical evidence as to the role played by emotiveness in the image retrieval process. Our study aims to fill this gap and investigates how users perceive the emotional content of the image-seeking task; explicate this emotional content in search keywords; and react to image emotiveness in selecting relevant images. Using a multimethod approach that combines quantitative and qualitative analyses, we performed three experiments where participants searched for images, both within the predefined set of images and in an open Web environment. Our findings suggest that although seekers rarely explicate image emotiveness in search keywords, their decision to select relevant images is largely dependent on their perception of the emotional content of the task and images. We discuss implications for research on emotions in image retrieval, as well as practical implications for designers of search systems.

图像具有复杂的属性系统。图像最难以捉摸的特性之一就是它的情感–触发观众情绪反应的能力。先前的研究表明，用户对图像的情感有反应，但迄今为止，关于情感在图像检索过程中所起的作用的理论了解很少，经验证据也很少。我们的研究旨在填补这一空白，并调查用户如何感知图像搜索任务的情感内容；在搜索关键词中表达这种情感内容；并在选择相关图像时对图像情感产生反应。使用结合了定量和定性分析的多方法方法，我们进行了三个实验，参与者在预定义的图像集中和开放的Web环境中搜索图像。我们的发现表明，尽管搜寻者很少会在搜索关键字中表达形象情感，他们选择相关图像的决定很大程度上取决于他们对任务和图像的情感内容的理解。我们讨论了图像检索中情感研究的意义以及对搜索系统设计人员的实际意义。